Traditional Full Irish Breakfast (fry up) - The Irishman's Wife (2024)

ByEmma LeePosted onUpdated on

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The breakfast of champions. A plate of ALL the cooked breakfast bits… The traditional, full Irish breakfast or a “fry up” as it’s more commonly known.After nearly twenty years with my Irishman, I’ve made a few of these over the years. And while everyone has their take on a full Irish breakfast, this is mine. I’ve seen so many variations, with potato farls (Irish potato bread / potato pancakes) a staple in Northern Ireland, or bubble & squeak, and even hot chips! This one is a Sunday staple. Perfect for a cold winter morning, or as the ultimate hangover cure the day after St Patrick’s Day.

Traditional Full Irish Breakfast (fry up) - The Irishman's Wife (1)

What’s a Traditional full Irish breakfast?

It’s a cooked breakfast with all the sides cooked in a skillet. Want a taste of Ireland in one dish? This is it! It’s normally served on the weekend or on special occasions and is a staple on any Irish breakfast menu. Here are the main ingredients of an Irish fry-up…

  • Fried egg (or eggs) sunny side up
  • Bacon rashers. Bonus points if it’s Irish bacon.
  • Pork Sausages. A non-negotiable. Irish pork sausages are the best!
  • Hash browns or some form of potatoes. Leftover baked (or pan-fried) potatoes are my go-to, however, the Irishman would happily have oven-baked chips with his!
  • Soda bread. Irish brown bread is the most common when you are served up a typical Irish breakfast, however, in our house, we alternate between traditional brown soda bread and my
  • Black or white pudding.
  • Grilled Tomatoes. We always have cherry tomatoes in the fridge, however you can substitute for any other tomato. You’ll just have to adjust the cooking time for larger fruit it cut it up before cooking.
  • Beans. Good old Baked beans either homemade or store-bought.
  • Button mushrooms sauteed in a little knob of Irish butter and seasoned with salt and pepper
  • A little oil or Irish butter for cooking in the pan and to butter the soda bread- Kerrygold is my go-to

Equipment you’ll need

As the majority of this hearty Irish breakfast is cooked in one pan, you’ll need a large frying pan or skillet. A small saucepan to cook the baked beans is also essential, as is a roasting pan to cook the potatoes or hash browns.

What is Irish Black Pudding?

While not easy to find in rural Australia, black pudding is traditional Irish food. Essentially it’s a type of blood sausage, made from pork blood, suet or pork fat, herbs, and spices and usually bound together with oatmeal.

Black pudding is readily available in Ireland in every supermarket and corner store and is an essential ingredient of any Irish fry-up. Although, in Australia, it’s quite hard to get. While it’s getting easier (sometimes our local Woolworths has it), I mainly order it from Taste Ireland – our savior for those Irish food cravings like Taytos, Ballymaloe tomato ketchup, and Irish whole wheat flour (the main ingredient of Irish brown bread)

The nitty gritty

  1. Preheat the oven to 180 C.
  2. On a baking sheet, pop the hashbrowns or leftover potatoes with a little oil into the oven. Bake until golden and season with salt and pepper.
  3. In a small saucepan, heat the baked beans. While they are cooking start on the fried bits.
  4. In a large skillet, cook the sausages on medium heat. Once they are ready to turn, add the mushrooms to your pan with a knob of butter. Let the butter melt and stir through the mushrooms.
  5. Add the black pudding to the pan and cook for 4 minutes on each side.
  6. Into the pan add the tomatoes and bacon. Cook for a couple of minutes.
  7. When everything else is fully cooked and ready to serve, crack the eggs into the pan and cook until sunny side up.
  8. Pop all the cooked ingredients on a plate and serve with 2 slices of soda bread (and butter), a cup of tea, and a glass of orange juice. Enjoy!

Here’s what I serve alongside this hearty breakfast fry up

A big glass of Orange Juice is essential.

Brown Sauce. Ahh, the mystery brown sauce! Please note, this is not bbq sauce but an actual English condiment called “brown sauce”. The most popular is HP Brown Sauce. It’s pretty much a disaster if we run out of this stuff. I think of it as a mix of tomato and bbq sauce with a strong vinegar component. It’s not for everyone, personally, I’m more of a bbq sauce girl, but in our house, this stuff reigns!

A cup of tea. Always tea. Coming from a family of coffee drinkers, I am always amazed by how much tea is drunk in Ireland. The average person in Ireland drinks 4-6 cups of tea per day – more than the English surprisingly!

Cook’s notes

This is the basic order in which I cook an Irish breakfast. Alternate ingredients will have different cooking times, however, by having an order in which to cook them, I try to have all my components, ready to go at the same time. Another method is to have a warming tray in the oven and as an ingredient is cooked, it goes into the warming tray until everything is ready for the plate.

What’s the difference between a full English breakfast vs full Irish breakfast?

While the basics are still the same, bacon, sausages, eggs, and beans, the main difference is the addition of black pudding in an Irish breakfast. It’s a love-it-or-hate-it addition. We’re split among our family, while I’m not a huge fan, the Irishman and O love it, so it’s usually added when I can track it down.

Love a good Irish recipe? Here are a few more…

  • Irish Stew
  • Bacon and Cheddar Soda bread
  • Colcannon – Irish mashed potatoes
  • 5 recipes for a cracking St Patrick’s Day
  • Traditional Irish Soda Bread

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Traditional Full Irish Breakfast (fry up) - The Irishman's Wife (2)

Full Irish Breakfast

5 Stars4 Stars3 Stars2 Stars1 Star5 from 1 review

  • Author: Emma Lee
  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 30 minutes
  • Total Time: 40 minutes
  • Yield: 1 serve 1x
  • Category: Breakfast
  • Method: Pan fry
  • Cuisine: Irish
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Description

The breakfast of champions. A plate of ALL the cooked breakfast bits… The full, traditional Irish breakfast or a “fry up” as it’s more commonly known.

Ingredients

Scale

  • 1 cooked potato, sliced into 1cm discs or hash brown
  • 130g baked beans
  • a little olive oil
  • 1 Irish pork sausage
  • 3 mushrooms
  • knob of butter
  • 2 slices of black pudding cut approx 2cm thick.
  • 3 cherry tomatoes
  • 2 rashes eye bacon
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 slices of Irish brown bread, or bacon, chive and cheese soda bread
  • a cup of tea
  • glass of orange juice

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 180 C.
  2. On a baking sheet, pop the hashbrowns or leftover potatoes with a little oil into the oven. Bake until golden and season with salt and pepper.
  3. In a small saucepan, heat the baked beans. While they are cooking start on the fried bits.
  4. In a large skillet, cook the sausages on medium heat. Once they are ready to turn, add the mushrooms to your pan with a knob of butter. Let the butter melt and stir through the mushrooms.
  5. Add the black pudding to the pan and cook for 4 minutes on each side.
  6. Into the pan add the tomatoes and bacon. Cook for a couple of minutes.
  7. When everything else is fully cooked and ready to serve, crack the eggs into the pan and cook until sunny side up.
  8. Pop all the cooked ingredients on a plate and serve with 2 slices of soda bread (and butter), a cup of tea, and a glass of orange juice.

Notes

This is the basic order in which I cook a full Irish breakfast. Alternate ingredients will have different cooking times, however, by having an order in which to cook them, I try to have all my components, ready to go at the same time. Another method is to have a warming tray in the oven and as an ingredient is cooked, it goes into the warming tray until everything is ready for the plate.

Traditional Full Irish Breakfast (fry up) - The Irishman's Wife (2024)

FAQs

Traditional Full Irish Breakfast (fry up) - The Irishman's Wife? ›

A traditional full Irish breakfast comprises bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, beans, soda bread or toast, tomatoes, mushrooms, and white or black pudding. For those wondering, black pudding coagulates the pig's blood into a sausage form. The white pudding is simply a pork sausage, usually flat.

What is a traditional full Irish breakfast? ›

A traditional full Irish breakfast comprises bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, beans, soda bread or toast, tomatoes, mushrooms, and white or black pudding. For those wondering, black pudding coagulates the pig's blood into a sausage form. The white pudding is simply a pork sausage, usually flat.

What is a fry-up in Ireland? ›

(In Ulster in Northern Ireland the breakfast is also known as an "Ulster fry.") All full Irish breakfasts include some or all of the following: Bacon, sausages, baked beans, eggs, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, and perhaps some cooked leftover potatoes made into a hash or a bubble and squeak.

What is the difference between a full English breakfast and a full Irish breakfast? ›

An English breakfast, although very similar to the Irish one, might include fried potatoes, as mentioned above. The other key difference is its lack of two key components: sliced black pudding and/or white pudding. These pork products, original to County Cork, have become a requisite part of any Irish fry up.

What is the Irish breakfast menu? ›

But a full Irish breakfast usually means a hot meal with a particular set of ingredients. Expect a fully belly and at least one piece of bacon, a sausage and an egg (or three). Toast and butter are also a must. Mushrooms, tomatos, baked beans, hash browns and other regional variations are all optional.

What is an Irish fry breakfast? ›

A large cooked breakfast of meat (bacon, sausages and black and white puddings), eggs, vegetables and potato all fried in creamery butter, it is served with a generous helping of homemade Irish soda or brown bread for soakage and washed down with a strong cup of breakfast tea such as Barry or Lyons tea (depending where ...

What is a greasy Irish breakfast? ›

Next come the sausages, cooked until golden and mouth-watering, followed by beans, black and white puddings, tomatoes, mushrooms and chilled potatoes. Finally, the whole mess gets topped with a fried egg and some Dubliner cheese. A side of hearty Irish soda bread soaks up all the greasy goodness.

What is a traditional fry-up? ›

The “common” breakfast which evolved in this era, is the one that closely resembles what we know of the current English fry-up. It typically involved bacon, eggs, black pudding, sausage, baked beans, grilled tomato and fried bread served with hot drinks or fresh juices.

What is in a traditional English fry up? ›

A common traditional English breakfast typically includes back bacon sausages (usually pork), eggs (fried, poached or scrambled), fried or grilled tomatoes, fried mushrooms, bread, both or either fried bread and toast, black pudding, and baked beans.

What are the 9 items in a full English breakfast? ›

Standard ingredients made it easier to prepare and so the 'common' English breakfast rapidly spread nationally, its standard ingredients of bacon, eggs, sausage, kippers, black pudding, bubble and squeak, buttered beans, haddock, grilled tomato, fried bread and toast, served with jams, marmalades, tea/coffee and orange ...

What time of day do the Irish eat their main meal? ›

The Dining Experience in Ireland

The main meal of the day for locals is dinner, meaning making reservations is a good idea, especially if you're planning to dine during peak Irish dinner hours (from 8:00 p.m. onward).

What is the biggest breakfast in Ireland? ›

The Hard Boiled Egg Cafe began selling the biggest. Irish/English breakfast in the world in 2009 and have. the official Guinness World Record right as you pay at. the til to let you know it.

Is Irish breakfast stronger than English breakfast? ›

Irish Breakfast tea emphasizes the use of Assam and has a more robust and intense flavor than English breakfast. Like their whiskey, the Irish enjoy their tea extra strong. The addition of Assam gives the tea a reddish hue, and it exhibits a malty flavor.

What do they call bacon in Ireland? ›

Irish bacon, also known as back bacon or rashers, is a popular type of bacon commonly enjoyed in Ireland. Unlike the traditional American bacon, which is typically made from pork belly, Irish bacon is made from pork loin.

What kind of sausage is used in Irish breakfast? ›

Black pudding (blood sausage) may be more popular worldwide, but white pudding is very popular in Ireland and an important part of an Irish breakfast. White pudding is similar to black pudding, but it contains no blood—only pork, spices, and usually oatmeal.

What is the most common Irish breakfast? ›

1: Full Irish Breakfast

Featuring Irish sausages, bacon, black and white pudding, eggs, Irish soda bread, and more additions depending on where you are in the country, full Irish breakfasts are easily the most popular breakfast anywhere in Ireland. Originally published in March 2021, updated in June 2023.

What do most Irish people eat for breakfast? ›

Irish breakfast is a traditional meal consisting of fried eggs, vegetables, potatoes, and meats such as bacon, sausages, and both black and white puddings. The large meal is almost always served with Irish soda or brown bread, a cup of tea, and a glass of orange juice on the side.

What's in a full Scottish breakfast? ›

So, what is a full Scottish breakfast? Usually made up of bacon, link sausages, Lorne sausage (also known as square sausage or slice), black pudding, haggis, baked beans, fried mushrooms and tomatoes, toast, tattie scones and fried eggs, the full Scottish breakfast is a sight to behold.

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